But, I'm glad you're relying on a team that got fucking punted from the first round in 4 games, and has one 1 of its last 12 playoff games. And one may argue, or agree, that the team now is worse on paper than those two teams.

the rest of Mondi's babble.....

.

Can't say many people should take seriously the doom and gloom opinion of a guy who doesn't know the difference between "one" and "won".....

When the typo police come out there is only one inference to be drawn, you have nothing left to say that is relevant to the discussion.

Normally, I will avoid ad hominem attacks on these boards but you sir are an idiot. Disagreeing with me is one thing, but don't bother with spelling mistake nonsense.

Now please sir, go back to defending a team with one playoff win in two seasons, and one playoff win in their last 12 starts. Please defend a team whose GM traded away their MVP for a draft pick. Defend at team whose number one net-minder hasn't spoken publicly about the trade of their former number that occurred one month ago. Please defend a team that is touting David Booth as a legitimate second line player on a "contender". Defend a team whose GM has made precisely one good play personnel move since 2011 (Garrison), and a number of terrible ones along with a few where the jury is still out. Defend a team that is seriously looking at having J. Schroeder as its 3L centre this NHL season. Defend a team where their has been a goaltending saga since at least spring 2012, which shows zero signs of abating. And the list goes on...I won't even get into the rumoured drama around two of the team's more immature players.

Good ship Canuck has gone from the best team in the league in 2011 to a mediocre team in 2013 and trending down.

But, yes. Everything is fine and people who are predicting an off season for the Canucks are stupid because they don't know for sure. Obviously we don't know for sure. Its a fansite, people bullshit around ideas that's the point.

What's funniest about all of this is that if Meds wanted to pointlessly quibble about a genuine error as opposed to a meaningless typo he could have pointed out the Canucks have actually won two of their last twelve playoff games.

I don't think that's a huge downgrade from the forward group we saw most nights last year (12 most GP among Canuck forwards by ascending order of uselessness: Sedin, Sedin, Burrows, Hansen, Raymond, Higgins, Kassian, Lapierre, Schroeder, Weise, Ebbett, Sestito)

Will the Canucks get a similar rash of injuries/forced retirements/etc and have to go that far down their depth chart again? Maybe. Then again maybe it will be like 2010-11 and they'll have 10 guys play 70 games or more with another getting into 60.. that kind of stability would make a huge difference up front.

On defence I'm not at all worried about the downgrade from Keith Ballard to (I assume) Yannick Weber although I think we've got another veteran signing coming.

The biggest downgrade by far is in net where we're going to see Lack or Eriksson start ~20 games for this team, they are complete unknowns so that could be a huge risk.

But honestly to me the lamenting and all of that is incredibly premature. This team is not in a great spot by any means but it's not even close to a sure thing they'll be a worse group on most nights than some of the lineups we had to sit through this past season.

I don't wish to argue with you about your opinion. Based on the fact that I don't think "everything is fine and people who are predicting an off season for the Canucks are stupid because they don't know for sure" there's probably not much point anyway.

Mondi wrote:Not asking for you to engage, just responding to the people (HOMERS) around here that refuse to admit the team is backsliding.

I don't think anyone isn't willing to admit that the Canucks will take a bit of a slide but over the past 3 seasons we have a Cup appearance, two Presidents trophies oh and we've won the Northwest the past five straight years.

It's not hard to fall back from that success. I think what most are saying is that there really isn't any reason to spread doom and gloom. We will have a bit of cap space this year to make more acquisitions throughout the season, we have healthy players coming back and some decent young kids that may make an impact sooner rather than later.

We are likely still a top 10 team in the league as opposed to possible Cup favorites like we've been for the past 3 seasons.

Mondi wrote:I put this question to anyone out there: Have the last 25 months in Canuck's history been an example of strong management of an NHL hockey club?

Yes.

How can you say anything less than that when looking at our overall success. Sure Gillis has made some moves that haven't panned out, so has every GM if we examine each and every move to the nth detail. We look at the Canucks through a microscope because they are the team we follow. It's easy to find the warts and forget about the success we've been witness to.

We are going to see a differently coached team for the first time in seven years, and we're likely to see some some new young Canucks draft picks play a more prominent role for the team this year.

Changes are happening and hopefully for the better. We saw over the past 2 seasons that something had to be done as the team has gotten stale and easy to predict and defend against.

The benefit the Canucks have is they are permitted by ownership to operate right at the cap (even exceed it), which allows them to bring in and keep talent. The problem this year the Canucks have is they are permitted by ownership to operate right at the cap. This is terrible when the cap artificially goes down and really hamstrings teams that are always at the cap.

I'm not sure what you expected the Canucks to do exactly, the league (and NHLPA for that matter) has made it very tough for the Canucks to do anything this offseason. Especially when you change the rules and make what was a perfectly acceptable (and approved) contract for a superstar goaltender now have severe consequences under certain circumstances. Which has clearly made this player next to completely immovable.

Things will be much tougher for the Canucks this year, no one is denying that. We still have a strong talent base, some young blood and hopefully with a new coach we can have some decent success. We have the ability to improve throughout the season and then who knows what can happen come playoff time!

Most, including myself, thought that RL would fetch a good return (one even suggested Lu for Huberdeau and Howden or Lu for Connolly and 2 first rounders (TBL)). My point is, Gillis thought he had a strong card and tried to out wait other GM's for a better offer. I don't blame him for that. Hindsight is always 20/20... judging from the early days of that thread, I don't think many people at the time would have been happy with a less than stellar return for Lu.

Mondi wrote:Not asking for you to engage, just responding to the people (HOMERS) around here that refuse to admit the team is backsliding.

I don't think anyone isn't willing to admit that the Canucks will take a bit of a slide but over the past 3 seasons we have a Cup appearance, two Presidents trophies oh and we've won the Northwest the past five straight years.

It's not hard to fall back from that success. I think what most are saying is that there really isn't any reason to spread doom and gloom. We will have a bit of cap space this year to make more acquisitions throughout the season, we have healthy players coming back and some decent young kids that may make an impact sooner rather than later.

We are likely still a top 10 team in the league as opposed to possible Cup favorites like we've been for the past 3 seasons.

Mondi wrote:I put this question to anyone out there: Have the last 25 months in Canuck's history been an example of strong management of an NHL hockey club?

Yes.

How can you say anything less than that when looking at our overall success. Sure Gillis has made some moves that haven't panned out, so has every GM if we examine each and every move to the nth detail. We look at the Canucks through a microscope because they are the team we follow. It's easy to find the warts and forget about the success we've been witness to.

We are going to see a differently coached team for the first time in seven years, and we're likely to see some some new young Canucks draft picks play a more prominent role for the team this year.

Changes are happening and hopefully for the better. We saw over the past 2 seasons that something had to be done as the team has gotten stale and easy to predict and defend against.

The benefit the Canucks have is they are permitted by ownership to operate right at the cap (even exceed it), which allows them to bring in and keep talent. The problem this year the Canucks have is they are permitted by ownership to operate right at the cap. This is terrible when the cap artificially goes down and really hamstrings teams that are always at the cap.

I'm not sure what you expected the Canucks to do exactly, the league (and NHLPA for that matter) has made it very tough for the Canucks to do anything this offseason. Especially when you change the rules and make what was a perfectly acceptable (and approved) contract for a superstar goaltender now have severe consequences under certain circumstances. Which has clearly made this player next to completely immovable.

Things will be much tougher for the Canucks this year, no one is denying that. We still have a strong talent base, some young blood and hopefully with a new coach we can have some decent success. We have the ability to improve throughout the season and then who knows what can happen come playoff time!

Ok fair points, I like the positive spin.

My point is not that we have a hopeless team, nor that theycan't have a good season. Rather, that Gillis has taken what was an unbelievable team (2011) and made some bad calls which lead to a significant dip. Therefore, I, like Spock and Rummy, see this as half empty.

The biggest issue is, and remains the Luongo saga. And the biggest unknown and hopefully positive issue is Tortorella.